Missing Pieces
by Woomie
Summary: I just rewatched CATWS and I kept thinking: where were Tony and Clint? Why didn't Nat reach out to them? So, this is my answer to that, and to what Fury had to "deal with in Europe" at the end of the movie. I'm still new to this, so reviews and suggestions are extremely helpful. It's still in progress, so I may incorporate ideas I'm given. I own nothing at Marvel, sadly.
1. Betrayed

CHAPTER 1: Betrayed

Tony was upside-down when his phone rang. He started and bumped his head – on the floor – before realizing that it was his emergency ring tone. "JARVIS, answer that phone!" he instructed, starting to extract himself from inside the tank he was working on. He had contorted himself in a very unusual position, though, with Dum-E holding his feet, and it wasn't going quickly. He heard JARVIS say, "Hello, Agent Barton. This is JARVIS. Mr. Stark will be with you shortly. Yes, I will make certain he knows it is urgent."

"I'm here!" called Tony. "Put him on speaker."

There was a pause, then he heard Clint's voice. "Tony, I hope you can hear me. There's some serious shit going down." He sounded tinny, like he had a poor connection.

"I can hear you," Tony shouted back, speeding up his efforts and scraping the skin off his right elbow for his trouble. How the hell had he gotten in there?

"Tony, get somewhere safe. Nat is compromised. Fury is dead and SHIELD has been infiltrated by HYDRA. Nat and Steve are together in the middle of everything, and people are going to come for the Avengers. Bruce is safe and Thor is still off-world, I think. You need to – oh shit!"

"What? What the hell, Barton? Is this some sick joke?" Tony hauled himself free, not even noticing that a few pieces of the tank's engine came with him and he had a new hole in his pants. He grabbed the phone and put it to his ear. He heard only distant shuffling for a few minutes, then, to his horror, gun shots and a whole lot of scuffling, grunts and shouts. Then there was a crash, two more gunshots, and the line went dead. Tony froze, but only for a split second. "JARVIS, track where that call came from. Put the tower on lock-down and call Pepper."

"Yes, sir." Red lights began to flash and his phone started to ring for Pepper. Almost immediately, it buzzed with an incoming call from Happy.

"And give Happy a quick run-down of what we know. I'll call him when I'm off with Pepper. He and the rest of the staff need to get to the safe rooms." Before JARVIS finished acknowledging his orders, Pepper answered.

"Hey, Tony, why are you calling the emergency line?" she asked. He knew she'd been in a very important meeting, but she had answered quickly and he thanked his stars that she trusted him.

"Hey, Pep," he was running as he talked. "It sounds like there's a whole lot going down right now. You're in L.A., right? Head to that safe place we talked about and leave all your electronic devices behind except this one, okay? God, I wish you had Happy with you." He started to get suited up as they spoke.

"Tony, what's going on?" he could hear the clicking of her shoes and knew she was already heading to do what he'd asked.

"I'm not sure, but don't trust anyone from SHIELD except the Avengers themselves. I know Nick Fury was killed, but not much else yet." He had everything on except the helmet. "Do you have anyone there that you trust completely?"

"Oh, my God. Poor Nick. Are you safe? Are you coming out here? And no, I don't have anyone that close. I'll drive myself."

Tony closed his eyes in thought. He wished he could go to her. "Hang on, I'm switching the call to the helmet," he said to give himself time to think. JARVIS transferred the call without him having to ask. "Okay, I'm back. I...I can come to you if you want. But I think Barton's in trouble in Europe." JARVIS had pulled up a map showing the location the call had come from.

He heard the sound of a car door closing. "No, Tony, I'm fine. I'm nowhere near SHIELD headquarters, and I can be at the LA safe house in less than an hour. It's right in the city, remember? Just, stay safe and let me know what you find out."

"I will. It sounds like Bruce and Thor are fine, but I'll let you know as soon as I know about the others." By this time, he'd arrived on the balcony. "I love you, Pepper."

"I love you too."

"JARVIS, disconnect and get me Happy." The AI complied, and Tony updated his head of security as he flew over the Atlantic. Happy insisted on flying out to stay with Pepper, stating that the tower was completely locked down and empty, all of the employees safe at their own homes or hiding out in properties that Tony owned but had under others' names. Tony was happy to give in.

He spent the next hour trying to contact any of the Avengers, with no success whatsoever. Frustrated and not knowing if it would do any good, he left light-hearted messages for each of them making it sound like he had no idea what was happening just in case someone intercepted his messages. "Barton, what have you gotten yourself into?" he muttered to himself.

It was a long flight, so Tony had plenty of time to think things through and bounce ideas off JARVIS. He also heard back from Pepper that she was tucked away in the safe house. Then JARVIS told him something that chilled his blood. "Mr. Stark, SHIELD has put out a capture or kill order for Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff. They have released this to all government agencies. They are being sought in regards to the murder of Director Fury and espionage. You, Agent Barton, and Dr. Banner are also listed as persons of interest." Tony realized he'd secretly hoped that Clint had been overstating things, or had been simply paranoid. But this was pretty unequivocal.

Finally, he was approaching London. It was dark, and most of the city was asleep – it was straight up midnight – but he lowered the lights on his suit anyway. He preferred to stay off the radar, literally and figuratively. He came in low to a mortgage company that he owned for some reason and JARVIS unlocked the door. The AI had confirmed that it was empty at this time of night. While Tony took care of his most pressing bodily need, JARVIS also found an all-night Chinese place that delivered. "You're as handy as the original Jarvis," Tony complimented his assistant.

"High praise indeed, sir."

The man delivering the food didn't say a word. He was either used to delivering to odd locations or too tired to care. Tony gulped the food, hating the delay but knowing he needed fuel, and reviewing what JARVIS had found out for him. Barton had called from an empty apartment building on the outskirts of the city of Belgrade. There was a SHIELD presence in the city, but even the AI couldn't find out where without more information. They didn't even know if the run-in that had lead to Clint dropping the phone call had anything to do with SHIELD, but it seemed like an awfully big coincidence if it was someone else. There were no reports of police activity in the area, but that might mean anything – nothing was reported, they hadn't bothered to note it, or they'd been paid off to not notice. Tony knew he had to check out the building himself.

He was soon flying over mainland Europe heading southeast. Although it was the middle of the night there, he was wide awake and jittery. Flying in a straight line was far too much like sitting still to distract him from his worries. What if he couldn't even find Clint? If he could, was he going to fight an entire SHIELD contingent? Should he have stayed and tried to find and help Steve and Natasha? He dismissed the last thoughts. If they didn't want to be found, he probably wouldn't find them, and at least they were together. Besides, he knew something had happened to Barton, while the other two might just be hiding out and biding their time.

Finally, the building was in sight. JARVIS scanned it and told him there was "reasonable certainty" that it was empty. "Good enough," said Tony and landed on the roof. The door leading inside was half askew and barely attached. Walking as quietly as the metal suit allowed, Tony worked his way down to the apartment indicated. Belatedly, he wondered out loud, "wait, why is the signal still coming from there?" He had a sudden, spiking fear that nobody had bothered to take the phone because they had killed Clint and left it with his body. "Don't answer that," he whispered.

Despite his fear, the apartment was empty. It was even locked. There was a heavy layer of dust that had been scuffed up and disturbed many places. There were also many places where it looked like something had been wiped up, swipes in the dust like a cloth had been run over it. There wasn't much furniture, but a picture was on the floor with the faded spot on the wallpaper showing where it had hung recently, and the window was broken. Tony walked over and looked out the window, noting that all of the glass was outside, meaning it had been broken from the inside.

"Where's the phone?"

"Scanning, sir."

"While you do that, analyze the scene."

"Yes, sir. I recommend a black light scan as well," answered JARVIS.

"Do it." Tony had forgotten that he had that option. He lifted one hand and a wide blue-white beam shown out. He turned slowly and scanned every side of the den-style room and tiny, attached dining area and kitchen. There were bright but miniscule spots on the wall by the broken picture, a few places in the kitchen, and on the glass shards still hanging onto the window frame. Tony used a special finger tip to scrape a little bit of each spot.

"Analysis ready, Mr. Stark," announced JARVIS. "A fight took place here, with an unknown number of participants. The places revealed by the black light have a high probability of being blood from at least two different sources, though the small amount makes that impossible to determine without a longer analysis with more powerful equipment."

"You can't tell whose blood?" interrupted Tony.

"No, sir. However, it is less than 12 hours old. I have also identified seven different places that were cleaned within the last day, so there may have been more blood or other evidence. There are also four bullet holes in the walls, but I do not detect any bullets or casings. I suggest we go to the alley outside next." Tony glanced in the last two rooms – an empty bedroom and bathroom – but the dust was untouched in both. He had no desire to climb out the window, and the alley was too narrow to easily fly in anyway, so he took the stairs. There was such a feeling of emptiness in the building that he didn't bother to try for quiet.

He emerged in the alley about 15 feet down from the second story window he'd just looked out of. Whoever had done cleanup hadn't bothered to be as careful here. There were obvious drops of blood around the broken glass, and a smear the size of half dollar against the wall level with Tony's eyeline near the end of the alley. And there were drag marks through the detritus of the alley leading to the far end. Tony said every swear word he knew, and JARVIS surprised him by saying, "I concur, sir."

Pissed, Tony used the sensor on the end of suit's right index finger to take a scraping of the blood on the wall, and wasn't surprised when his AI informed him that it was a 99% likelihood that it belonged to Clint. The blood on the ground was someone else's though. And JARVIS had more news. "The phone is in the alley," it said. "To your left near the ground."

Tony rooted around the disgusting alley, trying to hurry. He had no idea if the area was busy, but he couldn't count on being undisturbed forever. It took a while, but with a distinctly grim form of warmer / colder with JARVIS, he found a small smart phone hidden behind a brick in the wall. "Alright, Barton, I've got your phone. Any clues for where to look next?" asked Tony. He took the chance to fly up to the roof before examining the phone. It had a fingerprint scanner, so on a whim, he bared his fingertip and covered it. Clint's face suddenly appeared on the screen. He was in his suite in the tower.

"Hey, Stark," he said easily. "I don't know why you have my emergency phone, but I'm sure it's not good. When this message is done, emergency numbers for Nat and Fury will show up for 15 seconds. Don't use either number unless you absolutely have to, because that is basically sending them a 911. They'll kill you if you call those numbers when you don't need to." He said it so casually that Tony didn't even know if he was kidding. "If you found this on my body," continued the recording, "tell Nat it's a code 764 and she'll handle everything. Burn any papers I have with me, please." He gave his signature half grin. "And delete my browser history." He laughed. "But seriously, if it's all gone to shit, I'm sorry you're stuck dealing with it. Good luck with whatever." He gave a cock-eyed salute and the recording faded to show two numbers, one with an N in front of it and the other with an F in front of it. They didn't do Tony any good, but he memorized them anyway.

"Stupid spy shit," he scowled. He knew he should stay out of sight, but couldn't stop himself from pacing. The recording didn't give him anything. Nat was out of contact and Fury was dead, and there were no clues to where Clint had been dragged, apparently still alive. "How the hell do I find you?"


	2. Captured

AN: I do not speak German or Russian, so my statements in those languages come from Google translate...sorry if they are wrong.

I may have the next chapter out very soon too as I'm stuck waiting while my car is being worked on! Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

CHAPTER 2: Captured

Clint Barton was not as surprised by the sudden change in his circumstances as most people would have been. After all, he'd gone through a number of sea changes in his life. He'd gone from a two-parent home – albeit a really crappy one – to an orphanage, from a runaway to a circus brat, from a performer to an assassin, from a criminal to an agent, and from a spy to an Avenger. He was nothing if not adaptable. Still, the fall of the organization he'd been a part of for so long was kind of shocking, and he had sort of thought that Fury would live forever.

When he got Nat's emergency message, he should have gone underground immediately. He should have dropped his assignment, destroyed all of his phones, jumped in a hole and pulled it in after him. Except his assignment had been to protect a little family. The mom was a whistle-blower and he was supposed to keep her, her husband, and two teenagers alive and out of sight until she could testify in the Hague. She had risked all of their lives when she'd found her company was sending uranium dust to a buyer in Germany and falsifying records to cover it up. She had put the world's safety above her family's already, and he just couldn't abandon them, so he'd given them his very best hidey-hole and everything they needed to make it on their own for up to 2 months. Then he made another decision that went against all of his training and began to warn his friends. He'd traveled low-profile across Eastern Europe as he did so, but it hadn't been enough to keep him off the radar.

He was in a crappy apartment building – seriously, it should have been condemned – when his former colleagues began to close in. He was just making the last call, too. In a way, he'd known all along that his decisions would probably get him captured or killed, but he didn't regret them. He'd done plenty of bad things in his life; making the decision to save as many lives as he could as SHIELD went down was an easy one.

The contingent after him was better-equipped than he'd hoped. They had tracked him far too fast from Zagreb to Belgrade, and must have had a way to see his heat signature, because they burst into the correct apartment like a SWAT team on steroids.

Clint had been in the vents. He wished he could have seen their faces when the apartment was apparently empty. Unfortunately, he was able to travel only one apartment over before the vent system branched off into branches that were too small for him to fit through.

He took a breath and listened hard. There were five people below him. It wasn't the best situation, but it wasn't the worst either. This would be more difficult than normal because he'd had to take apart his bow to fit in the vent, and because he really didn't want to kill anyone, since some of them probably didn't know about the whole HYDRA thing. Still, if he were fast and smart, he could handle five agents and get out of there before their friends from next door arrived.

With a grunt, he sent the vent cover flying and jumped down into the middle of the men. He shook his staff to extend it and swung it low as he landed, taking down two men at the ankles. Straightening, he swung an elbow into the jaw of one of the men still standing and grabbed the barrel of another man's gun, twisting it suddenly down so the man literally shot himself in the foot. Since he was busy screaming after that, Clint kept the gun and pistol-whipped a tall agent who was coming in to tackle him.

Clint couldn't completely avoid the man's charge in the small room, and smacked his back against the wall, causing a picture to fall on the head of the man attacking him. He used the split second of inattention to get loose, pushed his staff against the wall and used it to give him extra speed as he jumped over the guy under the painting to land a two-footed kick into the chest of the next guy.

His life sucked right now, but the other men were in the doorway, and they were dressed in body armor and carrying high powered weapons, so it was time to go. Angling himself so his staff hit first, then his shoulder, he charged at the window.

He crashed through it easily enough. The buildings were so close together that he ricocheted off the next building's wall before falling and it threw off his landing. His left ankle bent beneath him, not broken but certainly not 100%. Rolling to his feet, he fired two shots at the end of the alley, not hitting the men there but just making them dive out of the way. He needed privacy a quick second.

He ended the call with Tony, figuring the guy was probably shitting bricks by now, and slid the phone behind a loose brick. He set up one more little surprise in case it all went wrong. Then he tried to pull off the impossible one more time. Sprinting for the far end of the alley – away from the end that was blocked, he slid as bullets came his way so they passed over his head. He pulled his favorite knife and had the first agent he saw down with a blow to the back of his head before he even realized Clint was headed his way.

He almost made it, too. The men in the apartment couldn't get a good shot, the men at the far end of the alley couldn't hit him from there, and he'd just about finished off the guys he'd charged so he could steal their car when something hit him in the center of his back and cold spread from the spot. "Never forget the sniper," Clint castigated himself.

They'd shot him with what the overly dramatic scientists liked to call Kraken Venom; he knew this from the speed at which he lost coordination. Clint knew it came from off-world and even a tiny dose caused confusion, clumsiness and lethargy. A little more caused the victim to fall unconscious. It was valuable because it worked so much faster than anything else they had, and it affected everyone the same. Also, it could be used over and over on the same person without damaging them or losing effectiveness. The perfect sedative.

Even as he analyzed what was happening, Clint's body gave up on him. He stumbled into a right hook that knocked him against the wall. It didn't even hurt any more. "Kapitulieren!" barked the man closest to him, but Clint pretended he didn't know German because he had never been good at surrendering any way.

He swung wildly and missed, barely keeping his balance, and noticed that there were two guns pointed at him. "Surrender!" snarled the same man.

"No thanks." To punctuate his refusal, he swung his staff at the man's head, but it was a sad effort, and the man just pushed it away. Whatever he said in return Clint missed, because suddenly his face was against the pavement.

Some time later

Clint stared at his hands, each handcuffed to a bar on a metal table, set about two feet apart so he couldn't use them together in any way. He was sitting on a metal chair that was bolted to the floor. As he stared, the hands drifted in and out of focus. He'd been given more of the venom, he knew. Truly dangerous prisoners were given the stuff before being transferred from place to place, and occasionally before being questioned to reduce the risk to the agents, but also to keep them feeling helpless. He would consider it a compliment.

As he had the thought, a thick-set man with a steel-gray military hair cut walked into the room. He sat deliberately. "Sprechen Sie Deutch?" he asked.

Clint just stared at him.

"YA znayu ty govorish' po russki," he tried again, I know you speak Russian. Clint didn't even blink. His interrogator sighed. "English, then," he said with a heavy German accent. "Don't bother to deny you speak it. I have your SHIELD file." He pretended to study the papers in his hand, though Clint knew you memorized the information you needed before ever stepping foot into an interrogation room. "Mr. Barton, my men were supposed to kill you, not bring you in. But my lieutenant felt that we needed to talk to you. He wants to know why you killed the family you were supposed to be protecting."

Clint didn't move but internally nodded to himself. He'd wondered how they would play this, if they would assume he knew nothing about HYDRA inside of SHIELD and if they would try to get him to respond as a fellow SHIELD agent. Accusing someone of a crime they didn't commit was a known technique to get them to start talking – it was instinct to defend yourself. His interrogators had tipped their hand immediately and he wasn't impressed.

"If you do not answer my questions, we will assume you have become our enemy and you will be executed." The questions mostly covered where the family he was protecting was, and where the uranium had been stashed, which he didn't know anyway. Then the interrogator moved on to questions about earlier assignments, and details about the other Avengers. The one-sided conversation continued for maybe two hours. Clint responded in any way, never stopped staring at the wall behind the man's right elbow.

"Change your mind, or you will be dead by morning," the German finally sneered, slugging Clint in the face. When the latter didn't react, he left with a huff of irritation that made Clint feel like he'd won the interaction.

As the door swung closed, Clint heard something that made him sure he'd won. "Du hast ihm zuviel Gift gegeben." You gave him too much venom. "That's right," Clint thought. "Underestimate the stupid American." He wished he knew how much time had passed. He knew he'd have his chance to get away, if only he could take it.

Of course, he was still handcuffed to a table.


	3. Chased

AN: I was so excited to write this chapter because it's what I've been waiting for: Tony and Clint _together. _A few of the visuals made me laugh and I hope they do you, too.

Please review! :-)

CHAPTER 3: Chased

Tony paced around a hotel room reserved under the name of Aloysius Samberly, an alias his dad had used a couple times. He looked at the Scotch on the sideboard with some longing, but it wasn't really the time to indulge. He needed to stay awake and alert and figure out a way to find a lost assassin. He knew Clint wasn't the type to go quietly any where any time. "Help me out, man," Tony whispered, looking at a glowing replica of the city that JARVIS had pulled up. "Something, anything."

"Sir," said JARVIS, "you asked me to alert you of any major news items."

"Whatcha got?"

"Three blocks on the north side of the city just lost power."

"Probably nothing," huffed Tony.

"All of the cars in the area went dead as well," continued the AI.

"EMP?" mused Tony. "Now that sounds like Barton. Bring it up on the map. I want to see the exact epicenter!" He was already striding toward the door.

Across town, Clint picked his head up and smiled. He'd rested it on his left arm for two reasons. First, pretending to fall asleep when you were waiting for interrogation threw your questioners off their game in a big way. You were left alone and supposed to get more nervous, not relax and certainly not nod off. Second, with his face covering his hand and wrist, he could dislocate his thumb and work his hand out of the cuff. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but wouldn't prevent him from using his bow or punching someone in the face. For that matter, it wouldn't keep him from stabbing someone either. Although he was a lefty, he'd specifically chosen his left hand because he needed his thumb to brace his bow. If he found a gun instead, he'd have to shoot it with his right, but that wouldn't decrease his accuracy.

So he smiled, but not just because his hand was free, but because the lights had dramatically gone out. That was his cue.

Five men burst into the room, and he leaped to his feet. Grabbing the end of table in his freed left hand and the bar he was still handcuffed to with his right hand, Clint swung the entire thing into the first two men, knocking them off their feet. Then he charged directly at the remaining three, using the table to trap their weapons against their chests. His momentum propelled them all back toward the door, where he suddenly dropped to his knees with the table above his head. The two who had regained their footing and were coming forward to attack fell forward onto the table, as he'd hoped. He allowed the table to tip back toward the room and used the leverage to heave them up and onto their heads on the floor. With how the table was impeding him, he couldn't afford to allow any of them to get any space, so he came up to his feet and ignored the pull on his wrist to jerk the last man's handgun from its

holster and shoot him in the temple before he could get his semiautomatic up.

Shielding his face, Clint shot the bar he was handcuffed to twice, until it came loose. Turning, he shot the other four men before any of them could regain their feet. He took a breath and shrugged off the sadness and guilt. Yes, they were SHIELD agents – or they had been – but they were a kill squad. The first man he'd killed had a shovel in the hand that hadn't held a gun. Mentally shaking his head, Clint quickly divested them of the gear he could use and in no time he was shrugging on a bullet proof vest and had three guns and four knives. What he didn't have was a lot of time.

He picked a random direction and headed down the hall. He heard shouting behind him, pulled a handgun into each hand and redoubled his speed. His reactions still felt slow. Timing it carefully, he sprang into the air and did a front flip, shooting two pursuers in their foreheads while he was upside down. He landed back facing the same direction and started running again. It looked like a flashy move, but was really designed to allow him to get a number for those chasing him and get a few shots off without slowing down significantly. What he saw wasn't great. There were still three agents standing, all armed.

Just as he thought he'd reach the next intersection and get a little space, an explosion shook the building, knocking him to the side. As he righted himself, he felt a sting on his neck. The words that filled his mind would have blistered the air. He dropped one gun to pull the dart out but knew the damage was done. "Verwenden sie kugeln, idiot!" he heard as he grabbed the wall to make the corner. Use bullets, idiot. Yup, they weren't looking to capture.

He was running on fumes and needing an exit. Belatedly, he noticed a red and gold blur sliding wildly down the hall toward him. "STARK?" There was a wealth of disbelief in that syllable. "If you're not a hallucination, could you please shoot the guys coming behind me?"

In response, Iron Man lifted is left hand and fired at Clint's pursuers as they rounded the corner. "No problem. Hey, you're a tough guy to track --"

Clint's nervous system was sending him to a nap, so he interrupted. "Gonna pass out for a couple. You need to know --" but everything went black before he could finish his sentence.

Tony stared at Clint for a moment, not having expected 1) to find him just seconds after he entered the building or 2) the archer to pass out almost immediately. Then the agents who'd given chase the moment he'd flown near the building reminded him they were still there by firing a tank buster through the window he'd broken. They obviously weren't too worried about casualties. Tony threw himself over Barton to protect the man, who wasn't wearing any armor, and they were both blown through a wall into a small gymnasium. It apparently served as an armory, because it was full of agents who were gathering every type of weapon you could imagine. They must have been called to attention when the power blew, or possibly when Tony showed up, because they were all in the process of arming themselves.

"Um, many armed people, very bad," muttered Tony. Scooping up Clint, he flew in a frenetic pattern above the crowd, looking for a way out that didn't involve running through armed people with an unprotected body in tow. Any second, they'd start firing. Yup, right on time. Trying to cause chaos, he skimmed the wall, knocking hundreds of guns, knives, and more to the floor and onto the heads of the people below. Then, seeing the hole he and Clint had created being filled with people holding even bigger guns – they wouldn't use a rocket launcher in a gym full of people, would they? – he flew out the main gym door. He kept Clint tucked back as much as possible, as they were knocking people down like bowling pins. He zipped down the hall of the one-time school demanding that JARVIS find him an exit right now. Instead, JARVIS directed him toward an elevator shaft. He set down Clint and pried the doors open, then picked him up again and flew down it. The elevator was one floor up, so he had no choice. He really didn't want to be in the basement, but it would have to do. He pried those doors open, too, set Clint down again, flew back up and closed the doors they'd exited. Nobody could use the elevator without power, but there was no need to telegraph where they'd gone.

When he got back, Clint was already stirring. And swearing. At least, Tony was pretty sure he was swearing. His words were very slurred.

"Barton, you okay? What did they do to you, man?" Tony opened his visor to see him better.

"Duss," slurred Clint. "Emm um."

Tony was at a loss. "Uh, you take a minute and see if you can find some consonants. I'm going to take a quick look around to see how many ways there are out of here."

"Ate!" called Clint, rolling onto his stomach and making an effort to stand. "Ow oong ass enn?"

"Be right back." Tony couldn't understand a word, so he took a quick trip around the basement, which was pitch black except for the light from the suit. He found a lot of empty boxes, pipes, spiders, and heavy door covering an 8 foot by 8 foot space dug into the floor itself, either a tornado or bomb shelter of some kind. He found Clint on his hands and knees struggling to get up. He looked up as Tony walked toward him.

"How long s-since the firss EMP?" he demanded, much clearer than before.

"You're sounding better already!" announced Tony. Clint's eyes widened.

"An' why iss there a gre'ade on your leg?"

Tony glanced down in surprise. There was, in fact, a grenade hooked on the leg of the suit. "Huh. Must have come off the wall of weapons," he noted, pulling it off the suit. Unfortunately, while the grenade came off easily, the pin stuck in the joint of the suit. "Oh sh--" With reflexes he didn't know he had, Tony grabbed Clint and flew them straight into the shelter he'd found and Clint managed to pull the heavy door shut over them.

It wasn't even closed when the explosion went off, followed by a whole lot of crashing. The force blew the men backwards against the wall. Oh, good, Clint thought, another hit to the head. At this rate, I'll be a vegetable by tomorrow.

The crashing was followed by a second explosion, and the sounds of things falling and settling went on for at least five minutes. When Tony tried the door again, JARVIS interrupted his efforts. "Sir, it appears that this section of the building has collapsed. It is unsafe to attempt to open the door until I can calculate how the debris is situated and may shift. There is approximately 2 tons of debris above you at this time."

"Tony," called Clint, his voice a demand. "HOW LONG --"

"Wait," said Tony, suddenly remembering something Clint had said earlier. "What did you mean by the first EMP?" As if his words were trigger, a loud, mechanical whine cut through the air, growing in strength for 3 seconds then shutting off abruptly, and Tony's suit went dark.


	4. Shoot Out

AN: Okay, I just adore these two together. That's all. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 4: Trapped

"Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you just set off a grenade and trap us in a hole in the ground?"

Tony huffed his annoyance, wishing it was bright enough for Clint to see his glare. "I accidentally picked up the grenade when I was saving your unconscious ass from a whole building full of people with guns!"

"When we get out of here – if we ever get out of here, ask JARVIS to define the word rescue, because I think you've got it wrong."

"What you're trying to say is 'thank you.'"

"Nope," Clint's voice was dry as dust, his voice still a little slurred. "I'm p-pretty sure I didn't want to s-say, 'hey thanks for getting me caught, then almost blowing me up and trapping me under a blown-up building!'"

"They would have shot you if I hadn't come in! But then your booby trap trapped us!" Tony was yelling by the end of his sentence.

"Yeah, I was doing okay until your distraction got me shot with that dart!"

"Whose bright idea was it to design an EMP that strong anyway?"

"Yours," growled Clint.

Tony was silent for a long moment. "This is the Gen 4 EMP?" Clint grunted. "You stole my tech?"

"You showed it to us. I didn't know it was proprietary or whatever."

Tony stood up, bumping his head on something. "What the hell, Barton! And why does it go off more than once?"

"I don't really know," the archer admitted. "I only know how to time the first blast. I figure it will go off every 10 minutes until it runs out of power. I tried to tell you."

"And how many times is that? And really, I was supposed to get, hey, your EMP I stole is going to go off again from ung ung ung?"

"I was drugged, remember?! And I don' really know how many times. Maybe 3 or 4?" Clint sighed. Then suddenly, incongruously, he chuckled. "Ung ung ung?"

"No, more like ife int arton and I ssssso sssssstoned." Against his will, Tony chuckled too. "You sounded like you'd been to the dentist and your mouth was numb and they gave you too much happy gas. I expected drool."

"Yeah, that's strong shit." Clint sighed again. His head was pounding and he really didn't have the energy to yell at Tony any more.

"You okay?" asked Tony, finally both calm and serious.

"I will be. I was dosed a couple times, so I'm tired as hell, but it's wearing off."

"Liar." Tony's voice was quiet. "You could hardly stand a couple minutes ago." He swore that he could hear the other man shrug.

"No biggie. It's just to keep people compliant and less likely to fight back."

Tony laughed. "How'd that work out for them?"

Clint laughed again, despite their situation. Leave it to Tony to bring humor in to such a (literally) dark situation. "So tell me, how exactly did you get a grenade accidentally stuck to you?"

Tony ignored the obvious deflection and told the story of flying over the heads of all of the agents while carrying 'your heavy ass' and knocking the weapons down. Clint couldn't help but laugh again at the image Tony was painting. Then he made Tony describe the layout of the building and the entire block as best he could remember. All the time, he was fighting just to stay conscious. The venom was still doing a number on his system, and he tried to recall what he knew about its cumulative effects. He was probably breaking all kind of odds just by being conscious right now, but he didn't have time...

"You with me, Robin Hood?" asked Tony suddenly.

"Yeah, yeah." Clint blinked hard and dug his fingernails into his palms. "Just...could you say that again?"

There was a pause and he tried to guess what Tony was thinking, which was harder than normal since he couldn't see his expression. Then Tony said, "I said I'm going to wait until the next pulse then try to do a quick and dirty reset of JARVIS. We should be able to get a quick calculation and maybe even blast out of here before the next 10 minutes is up. Are you up for it?"

"Hell, yeah."

"Look, Clint --"

"No, I'm good. Let's get out of here and figure out what the hell happened to SHIELD."

"There's just one problem," admitted the billionaire. "I need some light. I'll have to do this manually and I have to be able to see for that."

"Wait. I think one of these guns has a tactical light on it, if it didn't get broken in all of this."

Tony heard shuffling noises. "Um, you're playing with a gun in the dark? That sounds like a fantastically horrible idea."

"Do you have another option?" demanded Clint. "No? Then, quiet. I'm not going to shoot you by accident. On purpose, depends on how long we're stuck here. But not by accident."

This did not reassure Tony, but the tiny beam of light that appeared next did. The next few minutes he spent removing the top of one panel on his left forearm and feverishly working on the small keyboard that was revealed. It killed him to work so slowly when he was used to having everything voice activated. "At least I'm not in a literal cave this time," he muttered to himself.

"What?" asked Clint.

"I said, could you possibly give me light without pointing a gun at me?"

"No, Tony," said Clint slowly, like he was talking to a toddler. "The flashlight is attached to the gun. They are very good friends and are stuck together. That means if the flashlight is pointed your way, so is the gun."

Before Tony could do more than call his friend a bad name, they heard a sound above them. "Is that --" Tony broke off to listen again.

"That's not just the debris shifting," warned Clint. "Someone is trying to dig to us."

"Normally, that would be good, but now it's not good, right?"

Clint didn't even bother to make a nasty comment. "That pulse should go off any minute now. Will you be ready? And how long will it be until the suit is up and running?"

"I'll be ready...I think. And the fastest to get even the basics up after that is 2 minutes." They fell silent and listened to the sounds above them for a moment, though Tony never stopped working.

"Okay, they can't know for certain that we're here, right?" mused Clint. "You said you came down an elevator shaft? Did anyone see you? Did you leave the door open?"

"Yes, I don't think so, no," mumbled Tony, not paying a lot of attention.

"Tony. Tony! I know you're busy, but pay attention. If they get in before you're ready, we're fish in a barrel. If we're lucky, they won't have room to have a team pointing weapons down here when they open the door. If we're not lucky, we might get shot the second they get it opened." He paused. "We have to decide now: are we going to try to grab the element of surprise and shoot our way out, or do we surrender and hope they don't kill us on sight?"

"Those are some shitty choices, Barton."

"Yup, but they're the only ones we've got, unless you get the suit up and we can dig out sideways." A loud scraping sound came through the door.

"Clint?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's go out shooting." Tony couldn't see the assassin's face, but he guessed it matched his own dark smile.

"That's what I was hoping you'd say."


	5. Escape Attempt

CHAPTER 5: Escape Attempt

As the sounds above the hole intensified, there was a much louder crackling sound and shouting. It was the EMP, and Tony redoubled his efforts, mumbling encouragements to JARVIS as he did so. He barely noticed when Clint borrowed one of his gauntlets and began frantically hollowing out one side of the dirt walls, making a surprising amount of progress in a few minutes. He was giving Tony instructions, but the latter was working too fast to listen.

Clint startled him by grabbing his shoulder. "I know you're busy Tony, but this is the most important thing. Do NOT fire until I tell you to! Do you hear me?"

Tony could just make out the harsh planes of other man's face. "Okay, okay, Clint. I hear you. No firing until you tell me." Clint relaxed and let him get back to work, also returning the gauntlet.

"Sir?" JARVIS' voice was staticky and faint, but it had never sounded better to Tony and Clint.

"JARVIS, I know our systems are only partially up, but it's a little...urgent. Get everything up you can. Focus on propulsion because we're going to need a quick exit in a very short time." Tony talked as fast as he could. Clint shoved a gun into his hands.

"Ye – sir. Power – 10 – cent. Propulsion --" before the AI could finish his disjointed report, there was a crash above and to the side, the door began to open, and Clint shoved Tony back into the miniature cubby he'd dug out of the side of their hole. While Tony was still recovering from that and blinking in the brightness, Clint stepped in front of him and pulled a Dirty Harry, shooting at the people ranged around the hole with guns in both his hands. Even as Tony regained his balance and registered that the people were pointing guns at them, Clint leaped up, climbing out of the hole, and called, "Fly out of here!" With that, he dove into their attackers.

"Fuck that," growled Tony. "Full power to propulsion!" he yelled to JARVIS. As he shot out of the hole, he noted that there was a hole through the wall to his back, but he had something to do first. Using his propulsors for both direction and to knock down attackers, he dove into the biggest concentration of people and grabbed a the back of Clint's vest.

"Sir, we don't have enough power to carry --"

"Make it work," he grunted, cutting off the AI. He worked feverishly to maintain his altitude, steer, ignore the flying bullets, and most of all ignore Barton, who was yelling at him to:

"Drop me and get out of here, dammit," while still shooting their pursuers.

It wasn't pretty or smooth, and Tony's left shoulder hit the wall on the way out, but they made it out of the building. Tony remembered their long-range weapons all too well, though, and he kept going. They were only about 6 feet above the ground. Although the sun was just beginning to rise, there were still some people on the street, and Tony knew they had to get out of sight soon. They got about 3 blocks when the propulsors began to cough, and Tony knew their time was up.

"We need to get off the street," he said as he set down Barton and landed himself, rolling his shoulders. That collision was going to leave a mark.

"I...have a place that will be good for a little while." The assassin lead the way through the alleys and every dark corner in the city it seemed like, but Tony didn't argue, knowing just how much he stood out in the suit. After about 20 minutes, they were in an ancient factory that was filthy, but solid and apparently empty. Clint lead the way to an office that still had a moth-eaten loveseat and chair. It was marginally cleaner than the rest of the place and, wonder of wonders, had a working lock on the door.

"This is where I was going to hide out, but the SHIELD guys caught up to me when I was out doing recon," admitted Clint. "I never lead them back here, though." He plopped into the chair with a grunt and a grimace. "There's a few supplies in the safe – help yourself. It's not a long-term solution though." He tossed Tony a water bottle and 2 chocolate bars, and took the same for himself.

Tony retracted his helmet. "The suit took more damage than I hoped. But I can have it up and running in maybe 4 hours, max."

Clint frowned at him. "You're hurt!"

Tony lifted a hand to his face and was surprised to find it sticky with blood. "Doesn't feel like much. I must have gotten hit be some shrapnel. He ran his hand around his face and winced a little. "Feels like a bunch of little cuts. Nothing to worry about until we get to London or some place we can hide behind my lawyers until this is cleared up."

"I'm not sure that's safe. And we need to get those cuts cleaned out before they can get infected. Chances are, there's some debris in them." He shook his head wearily. "Give me 10 minutes, then I'll go out and scout us a place with running water."

Tony looked more closely at the archer, who was pale and drawn. "Yeah, I'm not sure that's the best idea, cowboy. You look ready to drop." Tony stepped out of his suit with a sigh. It was comfortable, but he had spent a shitload of time in it lately. "Once JARVIS is totally rebooted, he can help us find somewhere to go."

"I don't think we should wait," said Clint, standing and grabbing his side with a gasp. He pulled his hand away to find it bloody. "Well, shit." He pulled his shirt up to see a ragged gash a few inches long just below the vest. "Not shot. Just a ricochet or shrapnel." He dropped the shirt and scowled. "I've been useless this whole damn mission. I couldn't even keep that family..." he trailed off and got a faraway look on his face.

"You've got a hole in your side. Maybe we can get that taken care of and you can engage in your self-recrimination later?"

Clint waved his hand, rudely shushing the other man. "Hang on a sec. Something is going on here. Something bigger...my interrogator was German. The uranium was going to Germany." He was obviously talking to himself, and Tony was done with it.

"JARVIS? You got enough juice to find us a nearby hospital?"

"No, a free clinic." interrupted Clint as JARVIS tried to answer. "Not far away, but not in a good part of town. We'll be found in a hot minute if we go to the hospital." His eyes were still distant. "What was in those pipes you saw in the basement?"

Tony ran a hand through his hair. "Um, I don't know. It was an old school. Who knows what was there?" He was frustrated. "Can we talk about it after you're sewed up?"

"Sirs, my scans indicated the pipes were packed with Composition C." said the AI from Tony's helmet.

"C-4?! Why weren't we blown to hell when that grenade went off?" yelled Tony.

"It won't blow without a detonator," said Clint at the same time as JARVIS launched into a more technical explanation. "Why were they in a school, Tony? That wasn't a SHIELD base. It was SHIELD personnel, but they weren't at the base. They weren't Serbians...there's some kind of..."

"Can we make sure you don't bleed to death and then figure out the spy shit?"

"I'll have to be the one to talk to them," said Clint, switching topics and making an effort stand straight. He looked at Tony's bloody face. "You'll just scare them. Unless you speak Serbian?" Tony just shook his head, but in all honesty, he knew Clint looked better despite his black eye, since his black t-shirt didn't show blood. "Okay, but I need your brain working on something. Some branch of SHIELD has their own separate headquarters, lots of C4 in pipes and they're working on getting uranium, but not usable stuff, just dust. Oh, yeah, and they have a gym full of a shitload of weapons. What are they doing?"

"Dirty bomb," whispered the genius. "And there's enough C4 for a dozen of them."


	6. Respite

AN: My insomnia means this chapter is ready before I thought it would be. There's not a ton of action in this chapter but I do like the OC Hana.

I'm excited for the next chapter too. There will definitely be some more bonding. :-)

Quick shoutout to sofiarose613, KayCee-616, and aoslover2001. Your comments keep me motivated to write!

CHAPTER 6: Respite

Tony scowled at Clint. "But we have to get you treatment now."

"You too," retorted Clint. They tucked whatever weapons they could out of sight and started for the door, Tony instructing JARVIS to stay in alert mode and keep working on the reboot. It made him far too visible to wear the suit on the streets. JARVIS protested, but both men ignored him, minds racing.

"Who do we even tell?" muttered Clint. "It would have been Fury...or Coulson...the other Avengers...we have to take care of this, Tony. You don't have any cash, do you?" He kept his voice low, as they were sneaking through alleys, following the directions to the clinic.

"Yeah, I grabbed 10k I keep for emergencies."

Clint froze and stared at him. "You keep...you know what? Who cares? I could kiss you, Stark."

"Please don't."

They'd reached the back door of the clinic. It was a dank, quiet alley, and both men's thoughts went to the alley where Clint had been grabbed. The door was locked, but Clint simply drove a heavy knife right into the guts of the lock and opened it.

As the men slid inside, a woman in a lab coat appeared, and Clint's knife disappeared as if by magic. The woman, blonde hair liberally streaked with gray, stopped so fast he pony tail smacked her cheek. "Do you speak German?" asked Clint quietly in that language, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture.

"Ja." She began to back away slowly.

"Please wait." He didn't move a muscle. "We need medical help, and we can pay in American dollars. We are not criminals. We will leave if you are not willing to help." His German was stilted, but he could get his point across. "Hand me some money, Tony," he said in English out of the corner of his mouth. He held up the $300 Tony had produced. "You could help many people with this. Please." He lifted the edge of his shirt. "Bad people have hurt us. We do not need to stay long."

The woman was still hesitating, but her eyes strayed to the money. The small clinic was completely dependent on donations. When the men did nothing but wait, she finally nodded. "Five hundred," she said, her German as clunky as his. She turned. "Follow me." She lead them to a room that looked like a doctor's office room, though it was small and everything was old. However, it was clean and there were cupboards of medical supplies. Tony handed over $500 and insisted she treat Clint first. He didn't fight that, but also wouldn't allow Hana, as she'd finally told them, to give him anything more than topical pain medication.

"It will hurt, inside," she insisted, but he waved her off. With a scowl, she told him to hang onto something and began to dig around inside the injury with a long tweezers. Clint made only a tiny hissing noise, but he turned so white that he matched the walls. Tony felt the blood drain from his own face, but refused to look away. If Clint had to live through it, the least he could do was be there for him. After an eternity, she carefully and triumphantly pulled out a jagged piece of metal about an inch across and Clint finally breathed again.

"I must clean it now," she warned, and began to flush the injury, then painted it with something brown. Clint's jaw tightened again, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the previous pain. Getting half a dozen stitches was almost laughably easy after all of that. But Hana was scowling again as she covered it with gauze. "You have lost blood. You should have one or two IV, and antibiotics too."

"We can not stay that long." Clint shook his head. "Do you have a shot of antibiotics you could give me?"

She kept scowling, obviously not liking giving less than the best medical care, and jabbed a needle into his bicep with what he felt was unnecessary force. "Now you may not die. Maybe."

Clint just gave her a smirk and got up – carefully. "Now, him."

Hana kept scowling, gave Clint an ice pack to put on his eye and sprayed Tony's face with a topical analgesic, but her hands were gentle. "I have to get out all of the tiny pieces," she said, and Clint translated. "It will not be pleasant, but we must get everything clean."

It was a painstaking process and Clint would have begrudged the time, except he was determined that Tony get all of the treatment that he needed. He also took a moment to wrap his left ankle. It was functional but swollen and sore. His thumb was swollen too, but he needed it free so he ignored it.

Two of the cuts on Tony's face were large enough to warrant one neat stitch each, and Tony stayed impressively still for the entire process. As Hana was prepping his antibiotic shot – and another lecture – a rough man's voice carried into the room.

"A man is demanding to see every room," Hana translated into German in a whisper. Clint relayed the information to Tony, then looked at the woman as even as he moved toward the door.

"We will not let anything happen to you," he promised. Although Tony didn't understand the words, he was on the same page, and stood between Hana and the door and pulled out the handgun Clint had given him. He might hate the weapon, but he wouldn't hesitate to use it to protect an innocent.

Clint peered through a gap in the door, then struck like a cobra. In the span of a breath, he had pulled a man dressed as a soldier into the room, disarmed him, and trapped him against the door with a knife to his throat. "Sprechen zie Deutsch?" he demanded.

The man just glared at him. Feeling the press of time, Clint decided to bluff. "He doesn't know anything. Let's kill this one and check for others," he called over his shoulder, still in German.

Instead of looking frightened, the man sneered and answered in perfect German. "You can't beat us. You'll never make it out of the city. And even if the American plan fails, we will have Europe in days."

"What, with your dirty bombs?" Clint wasn't sure how well that translated, but the man looked surprised, so he must have gotten the gist.

"It doesn't matter what you know. You're too late. In their fear, the sheep will beg us to take control."

"Who is us?" demanded Clint.

"SHIELD." He grinned. "Well, I guess it's HYDRA now."

Clint must have loosened his grip, because the man suddenly shoved him back – right on his wound, that SOB – and dove for his gun. But muscle memory and training took over, and Clint pulled back the knife and stabbed him right through the heart. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

Clint's shoulders drooped a fraction and he took a second before he turned back. He looked Hana in the eyes. "I am sorry you had to see that," he said, softly. "We will take the body, unless you think it would be safer for you to call the authorities? You can say we forced you at gunpoint to treat us and killed him when he came in. Tell them we went north and we'll lay a trail to corroborate that." He quickly explained to Tony what everyone had said, but Hana was shaking her head. Her gray eyes morphed from shocked to pure steel.

"No, let us take off his uniform and put him with the unidentified bodies. We will report a man stabbed on the street. It's not so unusual. You can throw his uniform in a dumpster far from here."

"Whoa. She's got balls of steel!" said Tony when Clint explained. She just laughed when he repeated the comment. They quickly took care of what they had to, and Tony gave Hana another $5,000 even though he knew they might need the money later. It still felt cheap for the danger they had brought to her door.

As they were about to leave, Clint studied the woman who'd treated their injuries. "Why did you help us?" he asked.

Hana pointed to the two of them. "You were in the fight in New York, both, right?" He nodded. "Well, most people ran. But the aliens would not have stayed in New York. So now it's my turn to help you. Now get going!" She closed the door behind them.

"Balls of steel," repeated Stark after the translation, and Clint couldn't disagree.


	7. Deep Thoughts

AN: I didn't mean to mmake them go so deep but sometimes the story wants what it wants and I'm just along for the ride. LMK what you think. OOC? Just right?

Thanks!

CHAPTER 7: Deep Thoughts

As the men made their way wearily but carefully back to the old factory where the Iron Man suit waited, Tony suddenly snapped his fingers. "I almost forgot."

He handed Clint his phone. "Thanks." Clint half-grimaced, half-smiled. "Listen, we have to go to Poland."

"Poland? What's in Poland?"

"Maria Bouma and her family. She can tell us where the uranium dust is hidden. We have to keep it away from these guys." Clint twisted his mouth in thought. "I don't have any way to contact her without going there. We need to boost a plane. And we have to stop in the apartment building where I left my phone."

Tony felt dead on his feet, but he smirked instead of whining. "Oh, is that all? Just another day in the life of a super hero, huh?"

In the end, Clint ran to the apartment building himself so Tony could work on hot-wiring some of the stuff in his suit that had gotten quite literally cooked by the powerful EMP. He was loathe to allow Clint out of his sight, but he had to admit that splitting up made things faster.

Clint was back faster than he would have thought, much happier because he had a small back-up bow and quiver in tow. "Left them in the vent," was the only explanation he gave. He also had a duffel bag, and two sets of incognito outfits: t-shirts, jeans, hoodies, and cheap sneakers. He topped it all off with two burner phones, already programmed with the other's number.

Tony nearly bit his own tongue off trying not to complain about the cheap, ugly clothes, but he knew they had to blend better. They stuffed their other gear into the bag and the billionaire insisted on carrying it. "Without the suit, you can cover us a hell of a lot better than I can," he admitted without shame.

He was even more loathe to leave the suit again than he had been for Clint to leave, but they were going for stealth and it was broad daylight now. He yawned as they walked.

"When is the last time you slept?" asked Clint, missing nothing.

"Um..."

"Yeah, that's what I figured."

"Well, how about you?"

Clint just shrugged, acknowledging the point, and they walked in silence again, heads down. Perhaps the most clever part of their Walmart-quality disguises was the earbuds Clint had procured. (No, Tony had not asked how he got all of the stuff.) Each man put in the buds, tucking the other end under the collar of the hoodie so it appeared to be connected to something. Everyone they met would assume they were listening to music and in their own little worlds. Since they couldn't speak Serbian, they didn't want anyone to expect them to talk.

As their feet moved, Tony's mind whirled, as it always seemed to. Suddenly, he blurted, "You let that soldier guy get loose, didn't you?" Clint froze and stared at him. "You did, didn't you? You had him dead to rights."

"Let it go, Tony," muttered Clint, walking again. "He hit my injury."

"He hit you _after_ he got loose," insisted Tony, who never left well enough alone. "Why did you let him go?"

Clint sighed and suddenly looked more tired than Tony had ever seen him. "We couldn't leave him alive. You know that. He would have lead them right back to Hana and the clinic. But I couldn't kill an unarmed man in front of her...or you. I gave him the chance to get loose and he took it. I'm not a good person. You know this."

"I didn't mean that, Barton." Tony reached to grab the other man's shoulder but stopped short when Clint ducked away. "Clint, I meant you did it to protect her. And me too, probably. You don't hide from it when you have to do bad shit, and then you do it the best way you can. And it still bothers you. That means something." He thought back to Clint's actions in the bomb shelter. "You jumped between me and the guys with guns even though I had the suit on, and you told me to leave you behind. How does any of that make you the bad guy?"

Clint didn't answer. "There's the airport. There's just one guy here in the guard shack, and I think he might be sleeping. I'll stick him in a closet and you can hotwire the Pantera." He pointed to the single hangar.

"So, we're stealing from some rich guy?" assumed Tony, looking around the "airport" which was just an isolated field with a flattened strip for a runway and a small hangar which couldn't hold more than three or four small planes. But Clint didn't answer, because he was already gone. Tony was watching for him and still didn't see him sneak up on the hapless guard, who was out of sight in less time than it took Tony to cross the street.

He caught up with Clint inside the hangar, and set about finding a way to get the plane in the air. There were just two planes there, and he took an educated guess and chose the four-seater. "Why don't you do this?" he grunted, trying to lighten the heavy feeling that had descended when he'd questioned Clint earlier. "Don't super spy assassin heroes know how to hotwire a plane?"

"You're doing it because we want everything we need to work, not just the ignition and steering."

"Wait. Has this happened before? What kind of everything do you mean?"

Clint raised on eyebrow and turned back to watching out the door, bow out and arrow drawn but not nocked. "I mean like landing gear."

"Right, yes, I'll do the hot-wiring here," agreed Tony.

As he worked, they discussed their plan. Tony used his new phone to contact JARVIS and instruct the AI to fly the suit to the airport, keeping it out of sight as much as possible. There were definitely going to be some people who saw it, but Tony then called Pepper. He called three times before she answered the unknown number, and he had to do some quick apologizing since it was just before 5 am there. She understood what he needed though, and she agreed that she and Happy would figure out a way for Iron Man to be "seen" in New York, where plenty of people would record the moment on their cell phones. That would give them some confusion when everything shook out and give Tony some plausible deniability. He didn't tell Pepper where he was or what was going on, though. HYDRA's resources weren't unlimited, but there was no reason to put information out there.

Then, the suit arrived and they were ready to leave.

"How long until the baddies figure out we're on this thing?" asked Tony a little nervously. The plane was a tiny 4-seater and wasn't going to outrun anything.

"It should take a while," Clint reassured him, going over the last flight checks. "Nobody thinks about privately-owned planes like this. We're staying below radar and it won't even get reported stolen for hours and hours. Nobody knows where we're headed either. Relax. You should get some sleep in while we're in the air."

"Yup, yup, relax. I'll get right on that."

Instead of relaxing, Tony took all of the tools he could find onto the plane and used every inch of the available space in the itty bitty plane to work on his suit. It was cramped and difficult, but it was familiar, and it made the time pass. Working always did that for him. There was a triumph in designing something new or fixing something in a way you didn't know it could be fixed. The thrill of it, the hunt for making something better, could always make the time run away.

But even as he worked and thought about the problem and how to improve the next suit so it wouldn't go down from an EMP and his hands followed his instructions with the inadequate tools, his mind also turned over the events of the last day and a half. He thought several hours had passed by the time he had another question.

"How do you keep doing it? There's always another threat, another fight, another hard choice."

"Damn, Tony, quiet for three hours then you hit me with that?" Clint sounded slightly amused instead of offended, fortunately.

"I'm serious. I've been through...some shit. But you've been doing this for years. Don't you burn out? Or do you just get drunk as hell every night?"

"I know you're serious. I'm just trying to think how to answer. I'm not used to Serious Stark." He thought for a few minutes. "I...have a partner. A person I can bounce things off of, who's not afraid of what I've had to do in my line of work. She keeps me honest. And she reminds me of why I do it all." He was vague, hoping Tony assumed he meant Natasha, when he was talking about her and Laura. "It doesn't really matter who I'm fighting as long as I know why I'm fighting. It doesn't even matter who's standing against me. I have to be able to live with myself at the end of the day." He ran a hand over his hair. "Hell. I don't know how to say it. I just feel like I'm making some little difference. Even if that's pathetic, that's enough for me." He glanced around and stared straight at Tony for a long second before turning his attention back to flying. "You know, you could spend the rest of your life going to parties and screwing beautiful women and collecting art and whatever. Why do you do this?"

Tony grimaced. Wasn't that just the question? "I...was that guy. That stuff is all I did for most of my life. I was just a rich bastard who went from one pleasure palace to another. Then I saw people fighting and dying and found out it wasn't enough to just be on the sidelines, useless. I figured out I could do something, then I couldn't seem to stop."

"Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"But it would suck more not to do anything."

"Yeah." Tony snapped the panel he was looking at shut. "One more question. When we get wherever we're going, do you think I can get a cheeseburger? I am starving."


	8. Safe House

AN: This is a short chapter, mostly a transition chapter. But hey, I got to use my grandpa's favorite exclamation! From what I understand, it's a non-curse, like dang it in English, but I only know a handful of words in Dutch, so who knows? Anyway, Grandpa has been gone for 30 years, and I enjoyed remembering this little detail. :-)

CHAPTER 8: Safe House

They had a very bumpy landing on what looking like nothing more than a sheep pasture without any sheep, in Tony's opinion. "Where are we?" he demanded, looking around. "I don't see a Burger King anywhere."

"Just so you know, you're still a rich bastard, Tony." Clint pulled the duffel bag out of the plane and started walking.

"You didn't answer my question."

They hiked in what appeared to be a random direction for a while through a lightly wooded area. They had traveled at least a few miles and exhaustion was setting in in a big way. Tony was seriously considering complaining and risk being called a bastard again when Clint stopped, set down the bag, and began to move branches aside. Tony helped and they soon uncovered a round, metal vent at least six and a half feet across. Clint pulled on it and it swung open easily enough despite its aged appearance. He pulled out the rifle with the light attached, tilted his head toward the opening, and said, "C'mon."

They walked through the gloom, finding it dank but not wet. Tony counted four left turns and two rights before they come to another vent type cover. Clint stopped and pointed the flashlight at his own face. Looking up and to their right, he said, "Red Robin. Everything's okay. I'm coming in and I have someone with me."

With that cryptic statement, he handed the gun to Tony and opened this vent as well. This time, there was a metal hatch behind it, and it opened out before he could touch it. A man holding a hand gun stood in front of them, but the barrel was pointed toward the ground. He looked concerned but not afraid.

"Clint," he said with an accent Tony couldn't place. "Please come in."

Clint stepped through the door and heard Tony follow him. Although he'd announced them, Serge Bouma still stood between them and his wife and family. Not a large man – he stood three inches shorter than Clint and at least an inch shorter than his wife – he nevertheless had a lot of courage.

"Serge, let them in," said Maria softly, and the man finally relaxed so Clint could see her and their daughters, 13-year-old Tani and 16-year-old Lydia. Maria came forward and surprised him with a hug.

"Are you all doing okay?" he asked when she released them. "I'm sorry it's been so long, and I'm even more sorry that you still have to stay here a while." He waved a hand toward his companion. "This is Tony. He's trustworthy. I guess." He winked after he said it.

"We are well, thanks to you!" said Maria. "Come in, sit down." She lead them in with the grace of someone welcoming you to a castle, not a temporary safehouse. She welcomed Tony too, and introduced the family to him.

Clint noticed how Tony's eyes bounced from place to place. Despite the strange way inside, after a small entryway, the place was very large. There were many rooms, all with heavy stone walls and windows that looked out to nothing but dirt. There were piles of provisions in one room, and two kinds of furniture – rudimentary, homemade, like a table that was just a stack of crates, and heavy, very old, high quality stuff like a massive four-poster bed made of walnut or a similar wood.

"What is this place?" he asked with no small amount of wonder.

"It's a friend's safehouse," said Clint, mouthing 'Nat' to only Tony. "It's an old manor house of some kind that sunk or was buried in a war or something. The Nazis destroyed the closest villages, and there's nobody around for miles. It's perfect."

"This is...impressive." There was a TV running in one of the rooms, and Tony could hear the hum of a generator. "How much time can they stay, if necessary?"

"Another six weeks at least."

Tony whistled.

"I hate to ask," Clint was a little embarrassed, "but can we have something to eat?"

As Clint explained briefly that they needed to move the uranium dust, he and Tony demolished 7 water bottles of water, 3 cans of baked beans, and a pile of granola bars. They didn't even bother to heat anything up.

Serge wanted answers to questions Clint refused to get into, especially about the timing of the request. He was obviously suspicious that they wanted the uranium but were not ready to bring the family to the Hague for Maria to testify yet. Maria spoke up in her quiet way, but Tony couldn't focus on her words any more. A soft, comfortable darkness was folding around him.

"Potverdorie!" exclaimed Maria suddenly. "You are exhausted and we are arguing like children. You must get some rest. It is a difficult trip to the uranium and you must sleep before you can go." Clint argued a little just for the sake of arguing, but the truth was he couldn't even remember when exactly he'd last gotten any real sleep. Serge bullied Tony up and into a bed, and Clint forced himself to double check every entrance and all of the security precautions he'd set up before his fatigue grew teeth and dug in. Giving in to the inevitable, he fell onto an empty bed and was asleep before he remembered to take off his shoes.


	9. News

AN: More action is coming soon. I think Tony having to deal with a fangirl is adorable and is 100% the reason for the whole chapter.

CHAPTER 9: News

Tony rolled over and scrubbed at his face. Before he had a chance to remember where he was and why, he realized there was someone in the room with him. He squinted. It was...one of those teenage girls, but he couldn't remember her name. Her arms were full of clothes and she had a horrified look on her face.

"I am so sorry to wake you," she whispered, setting her pile on the foot of the bed. "I was just bringing towels and clothes and things. I thought you were in the next room." She was blushing so hard he decided not to call her out on her lie. She wanted to snoop and thought he was asleep. He remembered being a teenager.

"No problem. I'm a light sleeper." He rubbed his face again and his hand snagged on one of the stitched cuts.

The girl's eyes traced his face. That she hadn't fled confirmed his suspicions. "You are...Iron Man, yes?"

"Yes."

Her mouth formed a perfect "o" and Tony decided that a star-struck teenage girl was a not a bad place to get a little information. "Clint – Agent Barton was assigned to protect your family?"

The girl – Lydia, he thought – nodded eagerly and perched on the edge of a wooden chair. "Mama found out someone at her company was selling dangerous materials instead of destroying them. She could not keep silent, and will testify in The Hague. But they must have been someone important, because people tried to take us. The shot at us!" Her eyes were shining with excitement instead of fear. Oh, to be so young. "Clint came to keep us safe and get us to Holland, but something big happened and he took us here instead. He said we must stay until he knows who we can trust." She leaned forward as if imparting a great secret. "He jumped right in front of us when people were shooting! And he shot them all with arrows."

She was adorable. And young. And probably shouldn't be alone in a bedroom with a man, he realized. "Yup, he does that. Listen," he looked straight at her, "if you get in a scary situation again, do exactly what he says. We'll keep you and your family safe. And you should be very proud of your mom."

"I know!" she stood and bounced on her toes. "Two heroes! I wish I could tell my friends at school." She giggled and left. Her buoyancy made him feel about a million years old. Or maybe that was the lack of sleep. He found the bathroom and looked himself over. His face and neck were covered in cuts and bruises. The entire right side was a complete mess, and the corner of his eye was swollen from a cut that extended almost to his eyelid. He even had one cut on his upper lip. He wasn't sure if he looked badass or just beat up, but at least it drew attention away from the bags under his eyes.

He was more than pleased to find a working shower, even equipped with soap and shampoo. He was even happy to put on the bland sweatpants and tshirt the girl had brought in. There were even socks and underwear still in the package. Feeling a little more human, he wandered until he found an oversized room full of the Bouma family.

Mismatched furniture ranged in front of a massive but empty fireplace. The same heavy stone as the walls, the fireplace was so big Thor could have stood in it without hitting his head, and it was at least 15 feet across. There was a fainting couch and matching wingback chairs with elaborate scrollwork on their legs, some outdoor wicker furniture, and a handful of cheap lawn chairs. A handsome table stood in one corner, and a once-magnificent sideboard held a microwave and – thank the Lord – coffee maker.

Maria greeted Tony with a smile when his gaze reached her, but it was Serge who noticed where his gaze had lingered, and who poured him a cup of steaming Joe.

Tony didn't make much conversation until he was cradling a second cup. Then, learning that Clint was still asleep, he got more of the story out of the family. He learned that Clint had saved their lives more than once as they dashed madly across Europe. He also discovered that there was a proximity sensor at the first grate you had to come through and a security camera at the second. With their parents' permission, the girls lead Tony to the entryway so he could get his suit inside. There was still more work to be done on it. He really needed his own lab to have it perfect, but he was getting close to having it acceptable anyway.

He was working and chatting with Serge and Maria when one of the girls gasped. She and her sister had been watching TV quietly in the corner, and the three adults looked up to see what had shocked her. Tony couldn't contain his own gasp.

"We have to wake up Clint."


	10. Gear Up

AN: Sorry for the wait on this chapter! It's Christmas crunch time now. I had a fun time writing the phone conversation, but I have no idea if that's how spies actually talk.

A big thank you to MewWinx96 and mafiabro for your comments. They really motivate me to keep going!

CHAPTER 10: Gear Up

Clint came to himself hard and fast. He'd learned to do that at a very young age, and his time in SHIELD had only honed it. Blinking, he lowered his knife from where he held it at Tony's throat. "Sorry, man." His voice sounded like he's been gargling with gravel.

Tony rubbed his throat, though the knife hadn't actually touched him. "Um, yeah, spy-man. I wouldn't have woken you, but you have to see this." Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tony silently cursed the older girl, Tani, who had suggested he should be the one to wake the assassin. He knew she'd had a twinkle in her eyes.

There was no amusement when they walked into the common room, however. Clint watched with the rest as the news played and replayed footage of three massive helicarriers crashing into the Hudson – and the Triskelion. Then they showed some very distant footage of a man single-handedly bringing down a Quinjet on the bridge to the Triskelion. Clint rubbed the two middle fingers of his left hand with the thumb and forefinger of his right. It was a nervous gesture from someone who felt his most confident when wearing an archery glove. That was certainly Steve taking down the jet, so that footage must have been from before Nat called. Had he and Nat been the ones to take down the helicarriers, or was it something HYDRA had done to further cripple SHIELD?

"When did this happen?" he asked, his quiet voice giving no sign of the worry and uncertainty roiling through him.

"Just a little time ago," answered Serge, who could read the text running across the bottom of the screen.

Clint's eyes met Tony's. "So, is this the so-called American plan going wrong or going right?"

Tony shook his head seriously. "We have to assume it's wrong."

"And we have to get that uranium and make sure it's far, far from Plan B."

"Yup." Tony gave the "p" extra pop. He knew that Clint was also worrying about Nat and Steve. He wouldn't admit it, but he was too. "Hang on." He turned to the suit he'd been working on. "JARVIS, analyze any news footage. Show us anything relevant we might have missed."

"Yes, sir," the AI answered with the alacrity that Tony had missed more than he'd realized. After a moment, the TV flickered and a blurry, shaking camera angle showed a small figure flying under one of the helicarriers, pursued by jets.

"It's like...a winged Iron Man," commented Clint, squinting to see it better.

"I have no idea what or who that is," was Tony's only answer. The next footage was the bridge fight, but much closer and cleaned up. Yup, that was definitely Captain America. Then, JARVIS showed them the APB for Romanoff and Rogers.

"Keep analyzing this, or do whatever you need to do to get ready," instructed Clint, turning away. "I'm getting my gear." He turned back and touched Maria's arm. "Maria, I'm afraid you're going to have to trust me again and tell me where that uranium dust is."

She answered immediately. "You saved my family," said the quiet woman. "We trust you." Before Clint could swallow his emotions and answer, his pocket buzzed. To his surprise, it was his emergency phone, which had stayed in his pocket, ignored for all this time.

"Yeah?"

"Cyclone. Glad you're still on the topside." Clint felt his mouth fall open at the familiar tones. Even without the name, which was a play on Hawkeye, there was no mistaking Nick Fury's voice. And not one other living person had ever called him cyclone. Since the University of Iowa's nickname was Hawkeye, Fury would call Clint by the nickname of Iowa State University instead in the rare event he didn't want to use the typical code name.

"Yeah, no fridge yet," responded Clint automatically. "Glad to hear you pulled a Mark Twain, Dreadnought." The first phrase was typical agent noir humor – no fridge meant you weren't in cold storage in a morgue. Pulling a Mark Twain was to be reported dead when you were still alive, and Dreadnought was something he had called the director all of once, and had been caught at it by Fury himself. Nobody but Natasha and Fury would know that name.

"I stopped by your place and your packages got there alright. One got a little beat up on the way, but it's okay."

Clint took a big breath. Nat and Steve were alive, though apparently one of them was injured. "That's – that's good news." He was tired enough that his emotions were getting away from him a little bit. "So, I'm here with Arya," he hoped Fury watched Game of Thrones and thought Stark. "And we're wondering if you saw the end of the game?"

"Yeah, our boys pulled off a close one, but we got the win." Fury, as always, kept right up with him. So that had to mean the helicarriers going down was a good thing overall.

"Sorry I couldn't be there. Hey, we've been checking out the land east of the pond and we're having trouble with skunks again. We could use your expertise to do some extermination. A plan b, if you will. I don't think Arya can stay, but this is a pretty big mess."

Fury seemed to mull it over for a minute. "I think I'm due for a little time away. Where?"

"Umm...how about where we had the um...spider incident?" When Clint had recruited Nat instead of killing her, he had met Fury at a little cafe in Budapest to sell him on the idea. Fury had referred to it as "the spider incident" for a long time.

"Okay. Give me day or two. I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

"We have a lot to talk about."

"That we do." In true Fury fashion, he hung up without another word.

"That was...cryptic," grumbled Tony. Clint excused himself from the Boumas and pulled Tony from the room, where he gave him a quick overview of the conversation and, of course, the fact that Fury was actually alive after all. All of the revelations had given him a shot of adrenaline.

"If the suit is up and running, gear up," he said. "We're going to get that uranium out of reach and piss off some HYDRA agents." A grin split his face.

"It's about time," was Tony's only response.


	11. Fire Fight

AN: I'm sorry this chapter took so long! Christmas is a BIG deal in this house and it's been a little crazy. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope it was great!

This chapter is long and the break to the next one feels a little contrived to me, but I had to cut it off somewhere. There's more bro-love between the guys because I love writing about friendship.

As always, thanks for reading and please comment. MewWinx96, you are my favorite. ;-)

CHAPTER 11: Fire Fight

Clint looked himself over in the mirror. He had a full kit stored at the safe house. He'd re-wrapped his side and dressed entirely in black battle leathers, complete with kick-ass boots, his archery glove, and a tactical vest. He had two full quivers, and on his back were both the small bow he'd arrived with and a full size version that transformed into a staff as needed. He was also wearing no fewer than 11 knives and he finally felt like himself again. He had spent too much time on defense lately, running, hiding, recovering. He was more than ready to take the fight to HYDRA.

Maria had explained exactly where the uranium dust was, and his guess had turned out to be right. It was hidden on some land in mountainous northern Poland that Serge had inherited from his parents. He was sure that was why she'd chosen Poland as a place to hide out of the options Clint had suggested. And if he could figure that out, HYDRA could too. Their advantage lay in the fact that they knew exactly where on the land to find it, but there was little doubt that they'd encounter HYDRA agents already there and looking for it.

The other advantage Clint had was a huge one. He grinned at his reflection and sat down to lace his boots. He had Iron Man. The suit was up to 80% effectiveness according to Tony, and 80% of Iron Man could beat almost anyone in the world. He'd cut out his tongue before telling Tony, but there were very few people he'd rather have watching his back than the genius in the suit.

Clint stretched his torso side to side experimentally. It didn't feel too bad. Hana had done a good job. His ankle was fine, and the swelling in his thumb mostly gone. He'd had something to eat and a couple hours of sleep. It was time to go.

There was something different about Clint as he strode into the main room, where Tony was studying a map projection of the area they were going to. The family seemed to notice, too, standing straighter as he entered. Gone was the casual posture and easy-going nature, replaced by the seasoned fighter, the man on a mission. The difference was uncanny. But Tony knew from experience that this was who he wanted on his side. He couldn't tell Clint that, though, so instead he said, "Just checking out the terrain here. It's about 150 miles away, but there's no good place to land the plane within a mile."

"I'm not sure we want to get the plane that close, anyway," commented Clint, studying the map. "HYDRA has to have some people there searching the area, or if not, some sort of alert system to tell them when anyone arrives."

"This might work," said Tony zooming in on what appeared to be a meadow. "It's maybe 3 miles away."

Clint was shaking his head. "Unless it's been prepped for a landing, it will never work. You need it to be totally flat and cleared of obstacles. We could only land here because someone put a lot of time into getting the area ready." He leaned in closer. "Is there a small airstrip anywhere close? I really don't want to take the time to drive out there."

Tony gave him a shit-eating grin. "Don't want to ride in my arms, hotshot?" Tani and Lydia giggled, so Clint just rolled his eyes. "Fine break my heart." Tony zoomed back out. "The closest I can see is maybe 5 miles away at the foot of the mountain. It's tiny though."

They did a little research into what Tony had found, and discovered it wasn't more than an airstrip and refueling station for small planes that ran low after coming across the mountains. Clint declared it was perfect and they laid out their strategy with the assumption that they wouldn't be the only ones looking. Clint would have preferred to do a lot more planning and recon, but in the end they decided that they couldn't risk HYDRA finding the uranium dust themselves.

Before they left, Clint spent a few moments with the brave family. He apologized for having to leave them again. "Do not let anyone in or respond in any way unless they ask for frosted Pop Tarts, not even if it looks like me or Tony. If someone else comes, remember the emergency switch." He made eye contact with each of the Boumas. "That is a one-time irreversible thing, but it could save your lives. It will fill the entrance with rocks and dirt and you'll have to go out the other way." He reminded them of how to get to the secondary location, and made sure Tony knew where it was too. He checked all of their go-bags and told them their bag should always be in the same room as they were, even the bathroom. "You don't have to wear it, but have it within a step or two all the time." He took a breath, then smiled. "Chances are, you won't ever need any of this, but since I can't be here for a while, I just want to make sure you're safe. The good news is that someone I trust explicitly is coming in a few days. So just hang in there, okay?"

They all nodded, serious but not scared, and he felt the weight of their trust. Even as they each gave him a big hug – and surprised Tony by all hugging him too – Clint went over all of his preparations in his mind. He hated to leave them, but he would not let them down. His mood lightened and he grinned when Tani, always braver than her sister, gave Tony a peck on the cheek and ran, giggling from the room.

"Somebody's got a fan," he teased as he and Tony made their way back through the tunnels.

"I have a lot of fans," shrugged Tony. "It's tough being rich and famous and this good looking. Fortunately, Pepper knows I just can't prevent them from loving me."

Clint rolled his eyes so hard he almost sprained something. "Careful, Tony. It's kind of dark in here and I don't want you to trip over your ego and hurt yourself."

The two carried on their familiar banter through the tunnels and all the way to the plane. They did this before every fight. Nat accepted it, as many agents employed dark humor. Steve tolerated it, having been a soldier. Thor was amused by it, and Bruce ignored it, acting like it was a little bit sacriligious somehow. But only Tony and Clint really understood the use of sarcasm and ribbing to prepare themselves. They both employed it to center themselves, to draw attention away from the danger and remind themselves of who fought next to them. It was a unique camaraderie that neither would ever have admitted.

As they did a final comm check, Clint averted his face as he finished his pre-flight checks and said, "Hey, dickhead, you'll come back for this family if I can't, right?"

Having expecting another attack on his manhood, Tony took a second to respond. Then, almost angrily he snapped, "Of course I will. Not that I'll have to. I'm heading to New York after we find the pixie dust, remember?"

"Yeah, I know. I just like contingency plans."

"So, I'm your contingency plan?"

Clint looked up, one foot on the plane's threshold. "I know. I didn't have any better options." He smirked as he climbed in and slammed the door behind him, pretending not to hear Tony grumbling in his comm.

The flight was short and they didn't talk much, except for Tony to complain how damn slow the plane was. As they approached the airport, he flew above the clouds and headed to do a quick scouting trip, as they'd discussed. Clint went over the basics of their plan in his head.

He would land on the airstrip, which wouldn't have much, if any, security, and immediately ditch. He'd run into the woods and head for the area where the radioactive material was hidden – near a small, unappointed cabin on the side of the mountain that he was landing under. The plane would be almost out of gas by then anyway. He'd hike up – it was a very gentle slope – and meet wherever Tony directed him. They'd base their assault on what Tony had seen. The uranium was buried, but Maria had given them a mental treasure map with everything they needed to find it. Tony said he had land with an empty copper mine in Michigan's upper penninsula. He would take the dust and bury it there, filling the entire mine with cement, covering it all with 10 tons of dirt, and planting a bunch of trees. He figured he'd leave out the part about the uranium and tout it as an environmental and safety effort.

Clint was coming in low and imagining the panic of the people below him who didn't have him on any of their schedules when Tony's voice came in, high pitched and annoyed.

"Oh, it's an ambush. I hate ambushes!" There was a loud sound, like a tuning fork. "Oh, no you don't! I just fixed this thing!"

"What's going on, Tony?" asked Clint. He wanted to fly straight to the fight, but he could do absolutely no good from the plane, which was slow and had zero weapons.

"Um...stay clear, Merida. There's a lot of – shit! – people waiting for us and they were expecting me."

Clint had landed while they were talking and threw himself out of the plane before it had stopped moving. He figured at the end of the runway it would probably just overturn on the uneven ground or, worst case scenario, it was keep rolling until it hit a tree. He had made sure it was aimed away from any of the buildings. It was the best he could do, because this was his mess, and he wasn't going to leave Tony alone to deal with it.

"Get out of there if you can, Stark. I'm on my way." He practically growled into the comm. "Don't be a hero." As Clint ran, he remembered Natasha's recounting of the argument that Tony'd had with Steve on the helicarrier.

"They knew exactly how to hurt each other," she told him. "They each look at the other and see Howard Stark. Howard had a lot of flaws, but he was Steve's friend. He was there from the beginning, and he started out as a poor kid too. Steve sees Howard's weaknesses without the shared background. He's afraid Tony has everything to give the world but doesn't have to will to do it. Tony sees Steve as another authority figure who doesn't understand how to give affection. He sees Steve as trapped in a black and white world, unable to adapt when things aren't clear cut. He thinks Steve's absolutes are going to get people killed – ordinary people, who don't have the gifts the serum gave him."

Clint had teased Nat for being an amateur shrink, but the truth was, she read people better than anyone else he knew, except maybe Coulson and Fury. She had ignored his teasing, more serious than he'd expected. "They really hurt each other, Clint," she'd insisted. "They focused on each other's biggest fears. Tony is scared that he doesn't have what it takes to really be a hero, and Steve is scared that he's still a weak nothing. That makes them both reckless, too quick to throw away their lives. They'll protect others, but they'll never protect themselves."

The memory faded as Clint pushed himself faster. He could hear the battle now, but Tony wasn't giving him any updates and he was more afraid than he'd care to admit that the man was taking unnecessary risks. He didn't want to distract him during a dog fight, but he needed to put eyes on him. Finally, finally he spotted the Iron Man suit whizzing past above the trees. Ordinary gunfire followed him, then the hiss of the pulsing, futuristic weapons HYDRA had in abundance. Clint immediately recognized that the bastards had the latter ground-mounted. That meant it was big...but also that it had two very big weaknesses. First, it could not shoot at the ground close to its own base. Second, it would overheat explosively if fired continuously. Clint smiled grimly.

He had to move more cautiously now, not knowing how many people were in the area or how they might be concealed. Tony whizzed past again, swearing, and this time a fat ball of blue light chased him. It was faster than he was, and as it drew close, it began to expand in a grid-like pattern. The light broke into smaller spheres that separated into a growing rectangle with the circles at regular intervals connected by a this filament. It grew larger and larger, and Clint realized it was a net of some sort. It sparked as it flew, and he held his breath. But the expansion had slowed its forward motion, and Tony shot forward just out of reach as it reached what appeared to be its maximum size of maybe 15 feet by 10 feet. It fell into the trees, sparking. It must be electrified somehow, and Clint understood Tony's swearing, and his statement that they were expecting him. It was a weapon specifically designed to take out Iron Man.

Clint was evaluating the situation even as he moved in closer. He could see the cabin now, and it was perfect, just as Maria had described it. An a-frame with a large addition adorned with convenient gables, it offered both height and places to duck out of sight. From what he'd seen, the hostiles were arrayed beyond the cabin in a rough half-crescent. The pulsing weapon had to be to his right beyond his sight. He ranged that direction and saw the fearsome weapon through the trees. How they had gotten the massive thing to this remote location he had no idea. It was two and a half times as tall as he was and two men were on seats set under the gun itself controlling its movements and firing pattern. Six more men stood around it, protecting the gunners.

Clint knew even his best explosive arrow couldn't take out the thing, but the pivoting mechanism was a weak point. "Stark, pull some attention to the west side of the cabin, could ya?"

"Yes, dear," responded Tony. "Though I could swear I told you to wait in the car."

Clint ignored the quip and waited until everyone except the eight men involved with the large weapon was out of sight. Giving himself plenty of space to move to keep himself from being an easy target, he took aim and fired an arrow. Despite the fact that he was maybe 50 meters away yet, the arrow flew right into the tiny opening, and he took cover and activated the explosion. In the ensuing chaos, he leaned out from behind the tree he was using for cover and shot four of the men.

He dashed to another tree slightly closer to the weapon as gunfire belatedly rang out. One breath, then he was stepping out and shooting again, and running to a new spot. Four more men down, though two more had come back to investigate the noise. One man was trying to rotate the weapon, but the entire steering mechanism was soup. Clint shot the last two and jogged cautiously toward the battle ground. He was about 10 feet from his goal when his instincts screamed at him and he dropped to his face. Bullets tore the air above him, slamming into the base of the weapon.

"Yeehaw!" came from above him, and Iron Man flew overhead, blasting the three men who had been trying to ruin Clint's day. "Yippee-kay-yay!" yelled Tony, zipping off again, and Clint rolled his eyes a little. If the suit were at full power, he could have taken a nap and let Tony do all of the work. As it was, another sparking net was shot Tony's way and the man barely dodged it.

Back to work, then. Though he grimaced doing it, Clint propped one of the bodies against the main firing button. It was the most expedient option. When he was sure the weapon was firing one continuous beam, he shot two men he could see, who were conveniently looking up for Tony. Seeing nobody else, he sprinted across the clearing toward the cabin. Gunfire peppered the area, but they were nowhere close to hitting him, and he could tell that they were far enough away that it was unlikely that they could hit a moving target.

"Hey, Iron Man, in a little less than 4 minutes, that big ass gun is going to blow up. You don't really want to be anywhere near it when that happens, 'kay?"

Tony answered, but Clint didn't catch it as he ran up the side of the roof that conveniently extended all the way down to the ground. He made up almost to the first dormer, having to leap and grab the bottom of the window to keep from falling back to the ground. With a grunt, he held himself up with his right hand and pulled out his grappling hook with the left. He tossed it perfectly to catch on the peak of the roof, and hauled himself up hand over hand. He pulled himself over the peak and pulled the hook loose, retracting all but about 4 feet of the cable. He lined himself up with the roof to the addition, which ran perpendicular to the one he was on, and slid down half a story onto its peak. Taking a quick look at the lay of the land, he positioned himself on the east side of the roof.

Clint felt himself smile. Four minutes was forever in a firefight, but he had a clear goal: keep everyone away from the massive gun, a clear line of sight, a high position, and his bow and full quiver. For the first time since he'd gotten the dump and hide call from Nat, he was in his element.


	12. Expendable

AN: Angst! Friendship! Also, any scene that involves one person holding another by the wrist to stop them from falling makes me relive _that_ scene from Endgame. *sulks in the corner*

Anyway...getting close to the end now...enjoy!

CHAPTER 12: Expendable

"Whoa, nice moves, American Ninja Warrior!" Tony called down to his partner. He zipped across the main clearing again, mostly serving to distract the remaining combatants, who had hunkered down. He was surprised they hadn't withdrawn. With the size of their force, and that big-ass gun, they had to have expected an easy victory. With the gun uselessly firing a continuous blast and Clint shooting everyone who tried to approach it – not to mention the fact that they'd lost maybe 90% of their force – they should have been on the run. Zealots, he thought. They were either complete zealots or completely terrified of the consequences of failure. Neither was a good option.

Tony suddenly swooped straight down and sent a blast into one area where he knew he'd seen some fire. A yell and a body falling from a tree was the satisfying result. He turned as he flew back up again, spying Clint, who fired off two arrows in rapid succession as he watched, then ducked down to avoid return fire. Why that man wouldn't wear real armor, Tony couldn't understand. He'd offered to design something many times, but Clint had said it would reduce his agility too much. Tony grunted to himself. Maybe a highly flexible new type of fabric that would appear to be normal clothes. It would have to be extremely light-weight, of the assassin wouldn't consider it...his thoughts continued to churn even as he patrolled the area from above, trying to suss out the remaining rats.

His attention was suddenly snared by the sight of Clint running along the damn peak of the roof like a cat to get a shot at someone who was using the huge-ass gun to hide from him. "What the hell are you doing?" he yelled into his comm. "I could have gotten that one. You aren't expendable, you know." The words triggered a memory.

"He may not accept your help no matter what your reasons," Bruce had told him once, when he'd heard about the injuries Clint had sustained crashing through a freaking skyscraper window. "I think he feels like he's the weakest link, the accidental Avenger."

"Why would you even say that?" Tony had demanded as he navigated the not-even-available-to-the-public Acura NSX around New York. He was, frankly, afraid of Clint Barton. The fact that he did all of his crazy stunts without any super powers only made it worse.

"He told me once he was 5' 2" when he was 16 – he didn't hit a growth spurt until he was almost 18. And he was the youngest SHIELD agent ever recruited."

"So?"

"So, he's probably always been underestimated. After a while, you start believing it. Now he's with – what – Captain America, the world-famous genius Tony Stark, a god of legend, and Natasha. He told me yesterday that Natasha is everything he is, but better. I don't think he was kidding."

"Hey, Bruce, I thought you weren't that kind of doctor." Tony grinned, but Bruce refused to take the bait.

"He's dangerous."

"To us? To the team?" That got Tony's attention.

"No, Tony. He's dangerous to himself. He thinks he's expendable."

Clint just laughed in his ear, breaking him out of the memory. Then he looked up. "Shit, Tony, look out!"

Tony saw one of those stupid sparking nets coming at him, and realized that he wasn't going to be able to dodge it completely. An arrow snagged one corner, but only deflected it slightly, since it was not physical but some form of electrical energy. The very edge of it caught the suit, giving Tony a hell of an electrical shock and causing him to spiral upward, uncontrolled. He knew it would be under control in a second, but even as he had the thought, he saw a second sparking net headed straight for the archer, who was still on the very edge of the roof, completely exposed as he took out the shooter with an arrow instead of trying to get out of the way. He hit the shooter, of course, but the damage was done.

Too late, Clint turned and dove for the grappling hook. Instead, the top section of the net closed over him and his entire body spasmed. Body going slack, he began to roll down the roof.

Tony turned the air blue as he dove toward the man, hoping like hell he had enough control – and speed – to stop him before he hit the ground. Luck was with them both, as Clint's foot snagged the top of the roof and slowed his descent enough that Tony crashed with little finesse into the roof and grabbed one of Clint's arms. To his relief, Clint's hand grabbed his wrist right back. Finding himself riding the roof like a horse, Tony couldn't stop himself from humming, "I came in like a wrecking ball."

And that was when the oversized gun exploded


	13. Wrap Up

AN: I sincerely apologize for how long this chapter took! My laptop died. :-(

My son asked if I'd write a sequel adding in a few other Avengers. What do you think? I hadn't considered it, but now it's in my head. Opinions appreciated, and I REALLY hope you enjoyed reading this!

CHAPTER 13: Wrap Up

The force of the explosion blew both men backwards, and Tony did the only thing he could. His left hand still holding Clint's wrist, he threw his right hand out and sent a blast behind and below them to slow their momentum as much as possible. He still struck the ground with a great deal of force, Clint smashing into him a split second later, their grip finally broken. Clint bounced off the Iron Man suit and rolled to a stop about 6 feet away. Both men ended up on their backs, and both lay there for a long moment.

"Bubble wrap," said Tony finally.

"Huh?"

"If you won't wear armor, I'm wrapping you in bubble wrap. Light-weight, inexpensive. It's the perfect solution."

Then Clint started to laugh. And once he started, he couldn't stop. It was a holy-shit-we're-still-alive laugh that came from his belly. It hurt, but he still couldn't stop. When he finally did, he heard Tony muttering about insane archers, but he ignored that too. "I passed the trucks they must have used on my way up," he turned back to practicalities. "If you're not hurt, why don't you dig that special sauce up and I'll hotwire one of the trucks?"

"No problem, Eval Knieval." Tony got up slowly and started limping away, visibly trying to cover up the limp. "But I'll give you a lift to the trucks." Clint's right arm was lying in a way that wasn't normal. However, when Tony had unearthed the oil drum, exactly where Maria said it would be, Clint had gotten up and gone to the trucks himself. He had not attempted to hotwire any, but was reclining in the passenger seat. Tony didn't bother to complain, but peeled open the drum and showed Clint the inside, where 3 innocent-looking small containers nestled in sawdust. "It's here."

Clint nodded. Stiffly. So Tony loaded it up and climbed into the driver's seat. It was awkward and crowded in the suit, but he could deal. "You know what's cool about being Tony Stark?" he asked as he navigated slowly and carefully down the slope.

"You never have to do your own taxes?" guessed Clint.

"Well, there are a lot of things, but here's my current favorite." Tony fell silent as they went through a rough patch, not commenting on Clint's pained expression when they bounced too much. When they found an actual road and things smoothed out, he continued. "It seems I own a luxury hotel a few miles away. Who knew?"

Three hours later

It was, Tony though, pretty good to be Tony Stark sometimes. He was on a private jet en-route to New York with a glass of high-quality bourbon in his hand, and it sounded like Pepper would beat him there by an hour or so. He could hardly wait just to be in the same room as she was. It wasn't even a sexual need – he craved the calm she exuded, he wanted the opportunity to tell her about his crazy adventures and then just hold her. Maybe forever. He wrapped those thoughts up and tucked them away. After all, Tony Stark didn't admit stuff like that.

Tony leaned back in the leather luxury recliner with a small groan. The concierge doctor at his hotel had given him a shot of a mild pain killer and he had ice on his abused shoulder, but he'd be sore for a while. The shoulder had gotten the worst of it – bruised when he busted Clint out of the old school, wrenched when they hit the ground after the explosion, and further stressed by holding onto Clint as they flew through the air. He also managed to break a bone in one foot, which was a fault in the suit he'd have to address, and of course half his face looked like he'd been attacked by a cheese grater. But the uranium dust was safely on board and headed far out of the reach of the European HYDRA cells. He'd count that as a win.

The doctor at the resort had been as good as advertised. He'd assessed them right in the penthouse with all portable equipment. When Clint had refused to take a sedative so his wrist could be re-set (I put my shoulder back in place, and I can do the same with my wrist, he'd said), the doctor hadn't balked, but instead had offered a pain killer that would not impair him or make him sleep. That Clint had accepted was telling about the pain he must be in. The doctor hadn't even blinked when Clint had added, "If you try to sedate me against my will or lie to me about it, I will break your nose." He had just, in his careful British accent, responded, "I'd expect nothing less." It made Tony wonder about the doctor's background.

Pulling up the comm screen and discretely sliding the ice pack off his shoulder, Tony put in a call to the penthouse of the hotel. Nobody answered, so he overrode the security protocols and put his call through anyway. The image popped up of a very relaxed-looking Clint Barton sprawled on his back on a pristine white couch. He was bare-foot and bare-chested, besides some tape in his ribs, so Tony barked, "The hell, Barton? Put on some clothes, man! Now I have that in my head forever."

Clint jumped a little and said quite a few very nasty things. Tony grinned. He'd never dare surprise the man in person, so this was a bonus. "...and you're lucky I wasn't bare-ass naked when you just suddenly show up on my wall!" he finished.

"Technically, it's my wall." Tony grinned. He was enjoying this way to much. "So...you look pretty chill. Enjoying the penthouse?"

"It has its appeal," admitted Clint. Despite his tirade, the only thing he'd moved was his head. Now he leveraged himself to a seated position and hooked an Iowa State sweatshirt with his left hand, the one that wasn't in a sling. He maneuvered it over his head and slid his left arm through it. As the doctor had noted, Clint's right size was "one giant bruise," and it was amazing nothing was broken.

Tony remembered the criss-cross of scars he'd seen across Clint's chest and felt a little guilty for surprising the man. A little. "So you headed back stateside?" he asked. "Your suite in the tower is open and ready. I think you've earned some down time."

"I wish," admitted Clint, lying back on the couch again. "There's a lot of clean-up over here yet. If there's this much coordination going on, there's a headquarters somewhere. Our mutual friend is coming out tomorrow to get things going."

"No rest for the wicked, eh? I would've thought you'd get a little time to rest since you're --" he waved his hand vaguely, "kind of broken."

"Not broken. Never broken. And this job doesn't work that way. I am going to order everything on the menu from room service before he gets here, though." Clint's face turned serious. "Thanks for the assist, man."

Tony waved his arm again – gently. "Whatever. I was bored in New York with Pepper gone."

Clint rolled his eyes, which Tony was starting to think of as his default expression. "I mean it. You could have just stayed put and kept out of sight. That's what most people would do."

"I'm not most people. And you're welcome. For the record, you're really crabby when you've been drugged and stabbed. I think you should consider taking up yoga." He ducked instinctively when Clint threw a roll of gauze at the screen. "That's exactly what I'm talking about!" He rubbed his face. "Who is taking care of the Boumas?"

Clint automatically winced at the use of their name, even though he knew it was a secure call. It was too ingrained that you didn't ever reveal specifics on a call. But then he grinned. "You won't believe it. Banner is coming to give them an escort."

Tony snorted out a laugh. "I wish I could see that! Those girls are going to run him ragged."

Clint grinned right back. That pain medicine was some good shit. "See ya, Tony."

"Yeah, see ya." Tony shut it down with a smile. It was time to call Pepper. He needed to arrange a donation to a certain medical clinic in Belgrade.

Clint laid back and picked up his phone. He had to make a couple of calls himself. When Nat answered, he swallowed down his relief. He'd heard that she was alright, but it wasn't the same as actually hearing her voice.

"You get hurt?" she asked immediately.

"No. You?"

"No. And Tony told me something different."

"He's a dirty liar," Clint smiled. The banter was a familiar relief. "And I saw footage of what went down. I mean, like literally went down. I also heard that someone was in the hospital. Are you trying to tell me that you are completely untouched after all of that?"

"I'm not the one who ended up in the hospital." She sounded smug. "And I'm just that good. I hear you fell off a roof. Again."

"Fell is such a strong word." He sighed happily. "And I'm in a penthouse on a billionaire's dime. Life's pretty good. I understand you need a place to crash. I might know somewhere."

"I was hoping that offer was open. I miss them, and I picked up a couple of souvenirs." He could tell she was smiling too.

"Ah, you spoil them. Give 'em a hug for me."

"Will do. Take it easy."

Clint disconnected with an air of a job finished. Oh, he knew there was more to do, but the uranium dust was out of reach, his friends and Fury were alive, and the Boumas would be okay. He yawned. He would call Laura again, and everything else could wait for another day.


End file.
